Dunne’s wave of optimism for future of canoeing in Ireland

National Olympic canoe manager Karl Dunne has revealed plans are at an advanced stage to develop the sport in Ireland.

It has been a fortnight of mixed fortunes for his team with Kayaker Eoin Rheinisch desperately unlucky in his semi-final at the Lee Valley White Water Centre while Hannah Craig finished 10th in the K1 Slalom, the best result by an Irish woman in the history of the Games.

On Saturday, Andrzeji Jezierski, who is based in Ballincollig, won the B final of the Sprint C1 200m event at Eton Dorney. But Dunne believes the sport can grow in the years ahead.

“We have plenty of water in Ireland so we should utilise it more,” he reasoned. “We are looking at learning from the New Zealand model which has produced world championship winning talent, indeed the woman who won the sprint final on Saturday, Lisa Carrington, was a Kiwi.

“We know we will never have the money to build a Lee Valley Centre like the multi-million pound facility which hosted the kayak events]. But what we are doing is trying to redevelop a section of the Liffey near Lucan which hosted a World Cup slalom event in 1988. We have some grant aid to date and now we are working on grants to create an actual slalom course.”

Apart from developing facilities Dunne also admitted that huge work in underway to improve coaching structures and discover new talent.

“We have been punching above our weight since the days of Ian Wiley finishing eighth in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

“Our elite paddlers have to stay abroad, that is just the nature of the sports, but we are now running new coaching schemes along with initiatives to get kids into boats and then talent programmes to identify those with potential. ”

And Dunne sees huge talent on the horizon. Exciting teenage canoe slalomist Liam Jegou finished fourth in the Junior World Championship in the United States last month and Dunne also hopes the media exposure generated by the Olympics will get more youngsters interested.

Jezierski won the B final of the Sprint C1 200m class on Saturday to finish ninth overall in the event. Jerzierski won in 44.041 from Vadim Menkov of Uzbekistan and Attila Vajda of Hungary.

“He was desperately unlucky not to qualify from the semi-final, his time would have been good enough to progress from the other semis,” Dunne explained.

“But he showed his class on Saturday with the win which should push him up to the world class funding levels.”